RPM return the error '/usr/lib64/librpmdb-4.4.so: undefined symbol: poptSaveLong'

Issue

While trying to run yum and rpm to get security patches for one of our systems we receive the following errors.

# yum update
There was a problem importing one of the Python modules
required to run yum. The error leading to this problem was:

   /usr/lib64/librpmdb-4.4.so: undefined symbol: poptSaveLong

Please install a package which provides this module, or
verify that the module is installed correctly.

It's possible that the above module doesn't match the
current version of Python, which is:
2.4.3 (#1, Oct 23 2012, 22:02:41) 
[GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-54)]

If you cannot solve this problem yourself, please go to 
the yum faq at:
  http://wiki.linux.duke.edu/YumFaq

# /bin/rpm -aq
/bin/rpm: symbol lookup error: /bin/rpm: undefined symbol: poptAliasOptions